UC Blog
Alameda Master Gardeners help develop garden to feed the hungry
In addition, plans are in place to make the organic planting and composting operation a demonstration garden with a monthly curriculum and teaching cycles for anyone who wants to learn about gardening, the story said.
The pastor of Asbury United Methodist Church, Chuck Johnstone, suggested last year that open land behind the church could be used to grow food for the hungry. In August, Alameda County Master Gardeners Bruce Campbell and Mark Brunell and a team of volunteers prepared the soil for planting by digging down 18 inches by hand, screen-sifting the soil to remove the pebbles and rocks, and forming five 80-foot-long raised beds. In December they held a four-hour planting party.
"We're doing all this on a shoestring. We replaced a large cash outlay with a lot of (volunteer) labor," Campbell was quoted in the article.
Reporter Thomas Petty said the Master Gardeners have two simple goals for the garden:
- Use an organic market garden model. Food scraps from the food kitchen are composted and put back into the garden for fertilizer. No artificial fertilizers or pesticides are used and the group is working toward "bio-intensive" beds.
- Have a closed system in which proper crop rotation increases soil fertility. Nothing goes into the system except sun, water and compost.
The Garden of Grace blog reported that 50 heads lettuce - romaine, green and red salad bowl, red sails lettuce, and some Russian red kale leaves - 12 broccoli heads, 6 Bull's Blood beets, and 6 turnips were harvested from the garden on Easter Sunday.
Strategic Initiative conferences set locations, open registration
The Sustainable Natural Ecosystems Strategic Initiative Conference will be held at the Radisson in Sacramento Sept. 20–22. Details about the SNE conference will be posted at http://ucanr.org/sites/SNE as they become available.
Registration for the Healthy Families and Communities Strategic Initiative Conference is now open. California Health and Human Services Secretary Diana Dooley will be the keynote speaker for the conference, which will be held May 17–19 at ARC at UC Davis. To register for the HFC conference or for more information, go to http://ucanr.org/sites/HFC.
The Sustainable Food Systems Strategic Initiative Conference will be held Oct. 11–12 at the ARC at UC Davis. More information about the two-day SFS conference will be posted at http://ucanr.org/sites/SFS as it becomes available.
View or leave comments for the Executive Working Group
This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.
Trade conflict with Mexico impending
California farmers will have to pay millions of dollars to Mexican authorities to export their products to the neighboring country if a trucking dispute is not resolved before summer, according to an article in La Opinión. Mexico plans to impose the new tariff in retaliation for the cancellation of a U.S. pilot program that permitted Mexican trucks to transport goods on U.S. highways.
The Border Trade Alliance reported this week that California agriculture will be the second most impacted economic sector if the two countries do not reach an agreement in relation to the free passage of Mexican trucks in U.S. territory, the article said.
"The retaliatory tariffs that Mexico has imposed on U.S. goods in response to the trucking impasse are hurting the U.S. economy and are a drag on President Obama's goal to double exports," BTA president Nelson Balido said in a statement released by the organization. "As Texas A&M University's Center for North American Studies recently reported, the U.S. agriculture sector alone has been negatively affected by the tariffs to the tune of $153 billion."
La Opinión reporter Claudia Nuñez spoke to the director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center, Dan Sumner, about the potential economic impact of the trade dispute.
"California exports about 20 percent if its agricultural production, principally to Mexico," he was quoted in the article.
U.S. and Mexican governments are involved in a a cross-border trucking dispute that could hurt both countries.
It's boon time for beef producers
Cattle ranchers are enjoying an economic boon, reported Reed Fujii of the Stockton Record. In March, beef cattle were being sold at an all-time high of $1.16 a pound, a jump of more than 40 percent in less than two years.
"Prices are good. They've never been this good before," the story quoted Galt rancher Duane Martin Jr.
Dan Sumner, director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center, told Fujii the primary driver of the price hike is short beef supply.
"One of the things that happened a few years ago: We had these incredibly high grain prices, and beef prices didn't go up, so that meant guys were selling," Sumner was quoted.
In addition, it takes time to beef up production.
"Cattle make cattle; the only way you make marketable animals is to have breeding stock," Sumner said.
To do so, however, will further reduce beef supplies in the short run.
A steak house owner told Fujii that so far he has not increased the prices of beef on the menu.
"I've absorbed everything for the last year or so on beef," he said.
High beef prices make for happy cowboys.
Pesticide exposure linked to lower intelligence
Children who were exposed to certain types of organophosphate pesticides before birth could have lower levels of childhood intelligence, according to a UC Berkeley study reported on by the Salinas Californian.
The study examined the effects of pesticide exposure in the Salinas Valley for more than 10 years. The researchers, representing UC Berkeley and the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas, found that every 10-fold increase in the amount of the pesticides found in the mother during pregnancy corresponded with a 5.5 point drop in IQ scores when the children were 7.
"These associations are substantial, especially when viewing this at a population-wide level,” a UC Berkeley news release quoted principal investigator Brenda Eskenazi, professor of epidemiology and of maternal and child health. “That difference could mean, on average, more kids being shifted into the lower end of the spectrum of learning, and more kids needing special services in school.”
The UC Berkeley study is one of three showing an association between pesticide exposure and childhood IQ published online April 21 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, the news release said.
Mt. Sinai researchers sampled pesticide metabolites in maternal urine, and researchers at Columbia looked at umbilical cord blood levels of a specific pesticide, chlorpyrifos.
“It is very unusual to see this much consistency across populations in studies, so that speaks to the significance of the findings,” said lead author Maryse Bouchard, who was working as a UC Berkeley post-doctoral researcher with Eskenazi while this study was underway. “The children are now at a stage where they are going to school, so it’s easier to get good, valid assessments of cognitive function.”
The Los Angeles Times reported that some of the data are not as conclusive as they might seem at first glance.
". . . Let’s be cautious—the IQ differences were small, and some only appeared by looking at the data in a certain way," said the article written by LA Times reporter Marissa Cevallos. "Women in the Berkeley study, for example, had their urine measured for traces of pesticides twice—once in the first half of pregnancy and once in the second half. The researchers found no correlation between IQ and pesticide markers in the first urine test or in the second urine test. But then when they averaged the two, voila—a correlation."
The story was picked up widely by the news media, including:
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Organophosphate pesticides are approved for use in agriculture. Increasing evidence suggests that prenatal exposure to pesticides may have health impacts in later years.